Four young people in Canada are taking the sixth largest pension fund manager in the world to court, claiming it is breaching its duty to invest in their best interests by failing to protect their pensions from climate risk. Represented by lawyers from Ecojustice and Goldblatt Partners LLP, Aliya Hirji, Travis Olson, Rav Singh, and Chloe Tse, allege that the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) is breaching its legal duties by subjecting pension contributions to undue risk of loss from poorly managed climate risk.  

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) today announced a new $1.4 billion investment to take a minority stake in a major American fossil fuel power plant operator– yet another gamble on climate failure that imperils the Canada Pension Plan and its members. The investment in AlphaGen, which owns and operates 23 power plants that burn fossil gas, oil, diesel and kerosene across six states, means CPPIB has now gambled $5.5 billion on risky new fossil fuel investments within the last two weeks– following its $4.1 billion investment in Sempra Infrastructure on September 23. 

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) today announced a new $4.1 billion investment in fossil gas, barely a day after its chief sustainability officer admitted in The Globe and Mail that investors are struggling to manage worsening climate-related financial risks, with physical risks "happening earlier than expected, with greater impact than was anticipated.”

Amidst another summer of heatwaves, droughts and wildfires forcing Canadians to flee their homes, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) continues to own and invest in companies that are prolonging the use of fossil fuels and making the climate crisis worse. In some cases, CPPIB is directly financing the expansion of oil and gas infrastructure, causing more carbon pollution to be pumped into the atmosphere and betting the world will fail to limit global warming to safe levels.

Shift, represented by environmental law charity Ecojustice, has written to Canada's Office of the Chief Actuary (OCA) warning that the OCA is severely underestimating the systemic financial risks of climate change in its valuation assessments. Shift and Ecojustice are concerned that the OCA is failing to assess the cascading economic and financial impacts of a rapidly warming world. This could have potentially severe consequences for the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and the Public Sector Pension Plan (PSPP), which collectively have more than $1 trillion in retirement savings under management on behalf of millions of Canadians.